* " Cum Basiliae degeret ad annum usque 1575 dum lumen sibi exortum, ad alios pro- pagare studct, ab amicis ad alienos sensim dilapso disserendi argumeuto, disputatiouem de Jesu Christo Servatore, ore primum inchoatam, postea scripto complexus est : cui anuo 1578 summam manum imposuit." — Eques. Polon. Vita Sociu.
2 " Et sane uiirum est, cum bonis Uteris ut audio (et ex sermone quem simul liabuimus, atque ex tuis scriptis conjicere potui), sis admodum excultus, te id non vidisse." — Socin. de iSorvatorc, lib. i. part i. cap. x.
8 " Audivimus ex lis qui faniiliariter ipso sunt usi, eum significasse, sicut turn jacta- batur, excellcns sibi si contiugeret adversarius, qui librum de Jesu Christo Sei-vatore adoriretur, turn dcmum sc totum hoc argumcntum ab origine explicaturum. " — Crell. Pncfat. Respon. ad Grot., p. 12.
* Exomologesis of Hugh Paulin de Cressey, etc.
*"P()st luculentas JSibrandi Lubberti commentationes adversum Socinum editas." — Voss. Resp. ad Judicium Ravensp.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER. 27
in theses, common-places, lectures, comments, professed controversies, have made that book the ground of their procedure.
One is not to be omitted, which is in the hands of all those who inquire into these things, or think that they are concerned in the knowledge of them; this is Grotius' "Defensio Fidei Catholicoe de Satisfactione Christi, adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem," Immediately upon the coming- out of that book, animadversions were put forth against it by Harmanus Eavenspergerus, approved, as it seems, by our Doctor Prideaux.^
The truth is, those animadversions of Eavenspergerus are many of them slight, and in sundry things he was mistaken ; whereby his endeavours were easily eluded by the learned Yossius,* in his vindication of Grotius against him. Not that the dissertation of Grotius is free from being liable to many and just exceptions, partly in things wherein he was mistaken, partly wherein he failed in what he undertook (whereby many young stu- dents are deluded, as ere long may be manifested), but that his antagonist had not well laid his action, nor did pursue it with any skill.
However, the interpretations of Scripture given therein by that learned man will rise up in judgment against many of the annotations which in bis after-comments on the Scripture he hath divulged. His book was at length answered by Crellius, the successor of Valentinus Smalcius, in the school and society of Eaeovia, after which Grotius lived about twenty years, and never attempted any reply. Hereupon it has been generally concluded that the man was wrought over to drink in that which he had before published to be the most destructive poison of the church ;^ the be- lief whereof was exceedingly increased and cherished by an epistle of his to Crellius, who had subtilely managed the man, according to his desire of honour and regard, and by his annotations, of which we shall have cause to speak afterward. That book of Crellius has since been at large con- futed by Essenius,* and enervated by a learned and ingenious author in his *' Specimen Eefutationis Crellii de Satisfactione Christi," published about the same time with the well-deserving labour of Essenius, in the year 1648.
Most of the arguments and sophisms of Socinus about this business are refuted and dissolved by David Parajus, in his comment on the Eomans, not mentioning the name of him whose objections they were.
About the year 1608, Michael Gitichius gathered together the sum of what is argumentative in that book of Socinus against the satisfaction of Christ; which was answered by Ludovicus Lucius,* then professor at Ham- burg, and the reply of Gitichius confuted and removed out of the way by the same hand. In that brief rescript of Lucius there is a clear at- tempt to the enervating of the whole book of Socinus, and that with good success, by way of a logical and scholastical procedure. Only, I cannot but profess my sorrow that, having in his first answer laid that solid foun- dation of the necessity of the satisfaction of Christ, from the eternal nature and justice of God, whereby it is absolutely impossible that, upon the con- sideration and supposition of sin committed, it should be pardoned without a due compensation, in his rejoinder to the reply of Gitichius, he closes with a commonly known expression of Augustine, " That God could, if he
' " In eosdcm exercuit stylum ut Socinianismi suspicionem amoliretur Hugo Grotius, scd |3r£evaricantem aliquoties vellicat, inccnsura, Ravenspergerus."— Prideaux Lecti. do Justificatioue.
2 Voss. Resp. ad Judicium Ravensp.
' " PrfEgentissimum ecclesije vcnenura."
* Triumphus Crucis Autore And. Essen.
* " De gravissima quoestione, utrum Christus pro peccatis nostris justitioe divinto satis- fcceret nccne? scholastica disputatio."
28 THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
■would, have delivered us -without satisfaction, but he would not;"* so casting down the most stable and unmovable pillar of that doctrine which he so dexterously built up in spite of its adversaries.
I dare boldly acquaint the younger students in these weighty points of the religion of Jesus Christ, that the truth of this one particular, concern- ing the eternal justice of God indispensably requiring the punishment of sin, being well established (for which end they have not only the consent but the arguments of almost all who have handled these controversies with skill and success), will securely carry them through all the sophisms of the adversaries, and cut all the knots which, with so much subtilty, they en- deavour to tie and cast upon the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ; as I have in part elsewhere demonstrated.^ From this book also did Smalcius take the whole of what he has delivered about the death of Christ in his Racovian Catechism, not adding any thing at all of his own ; which Cate- chism, as it was heretofore confuted by Frederick Bauldwinus, by order of the university of Wittenburgh, and is by several parcels by many re- moved out of the way, especially by Altingius and Maccovius, so of late it is wholly answered by Nicolaus Arnoldus,^ now professor at Franeker ; which coming lately to my hands prevented me from proceeding to a just, orderly refutation of the whole, as I was intended to do, although I hope the reader will not find any thing of importance therein omitted.